SPORT IN THE JUNGLES OF N. INDIA 151 



the jungles of Northern India, take a high rank. With some 

 experience of the great jungles of India and Burma in the 

 east and west and south, parts of all of which I have 

 roamed through at different times, I can safely say that 

 it is hard to beat those of the glorious north-west, or 

 United Provinces, as they are now called, if one is 

 searching for sport in a first-class climate combined with 

 magnificent scenery. 



Between the Jumna, which forms the western boundary of 

 the Province here and the Ganges, the fertile plateau of the 

 Dun exists with the Himalaya to the north and the Siwalik 

 range fifteen to twenty miles to the south. East of the Ganges 

 stretch the Terai jungles comprising the famous sporting area 

 of the Ganges, Kumaon, Garhwal, and so forth, with the well- 

 known Oudh jungles to the south. The Ganges is the great 

 river of the Province which is joined by the Jumna at 

 Allahabad. These two rivers rise quite close to one another 

 in the Himalaya. The other main tributaries are the 

 Ghagra, which divides the Province from Nepal on the 

 east, and the Gundak, which separates it from Bengal to 

 the south. 



Although at the present day animals, and game animals 

 especially, are by no means so plentiful in the United 

 Provinces as of yore, yet these jungles form a most fascin- 

 ating place to spend the cold weather months in and the hot 

 weather also from the sporting point of view for at the 

 latter period tiger shooting and mahseer fishing are at 

 their best. 



In this part of the country the plains and neighbouring 

 foothills of the great Himalayan chain are covered with 

 great tracts of the beautiful deep green sal forest inter- 

 spersed with stretches of tall elephant grass. Through this 

 wild and lovely country the rivers, on leaving the narrow 

 gorges in which they pursue their torrential course in the 

 mountains, spread out in broad stony beds ; the channels, 

 in which the flow of water is greatly reduced in the cold and 

 hot weather, often varying from year to year. It is a sight 

 to see these great rivers when in flood during the monsoon 

 months. At this season the turbid dirty-coloured waters 

 fill the whole bed often many hundred yards across and 

 become for the period quite impassable. At the other 

 seasons of the year it is difficult to recognize the country 

 to be one and the same. The broad beds now consist of 



